Richard placed the council in the hands of John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln, who was charged with control primarily of Yorkshire.

[3][4] A sudden decline in numbers of cases from the far northern counties appearing in the court of king's bench at this time may indicate that in the middle and late 1480s litigants from Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland diverted certain legal affairs to this new council.

[5] After Richard's death the council was re-established by Henry VII in 1489, nominally led by the king's young son Arthur Tudor.

[6][9] It was established to administer royal justice in the northern parts of England – Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Durham, Cumberland, Westmorland, and Northumberland.

However, after the failed Rebellion by Sir Francis Bigod, Henry had an excuse to arrest rebel leaders and to execute 200 people involved.

[6] After York Abbey's dissolution, founded by the Lord of Richmond as St Mary's, its abbot's house was retained by the king and allocated it to the council in 1539.

[9] In 1620, Thomas Wentworth gave a famous speech to the council in which he emphasised "authority of the king" as the basis for social order: "the keystone which closeth up the arch of government".